The Truth Comes Out

It really kinda feels nice when your ideas and/or statements are vindicated for all to see. I have been saying for years that the S.O.A.R., the Hillside Saviors, and other NIMBY &amp; BANANA philosophy, are the major cause for the outlandish explosion in the prices of property in Ventura County. Now is seems Mr Wendell Cox, a senior fellow with the Heartland Institute a conservative think tank has espoused his ideas along the same line.

He says that the American dream of owing a home has been largely undone in California. The main reason behind this kind of predicament is because of the massive amount of regulations in California that limit growth. Restrict the supply of developable land and prices are driven up. This has caused an unprecedented housing crisis in California.

The so called &quot;Smart Growth&quot; which calls for increasing density in all ready overcrowded areas causes more traffic congestion which in turn increases air pollution. A couple of Ventura's venerable council members, (Gang in the Ivory Tower) are &quot;Smart Growth&quot; fanatics. They believe that it's the only way to preserve open space, just keep jamming people into smaller and smaller areas. They both live in large single family homes on large lots.

The second item that was near and dear to my heart was the headlines, &quot;Ventura city officials revise 911 fee&quot;. I have also said for years that &quot;yes Virginia you can fight city hall.&quot; Because of the uproar from the citizens of Ventura over the plan of the Gang in the Ivory Tower to add $1.49 per month to each phone in the city to help pay for the 911 system, or if you would rather, you could opt to pay a $50.00 charge whenever you dialed 911, the Gang has decided to rewrite the plan. Now the way they have it is you can pay $1.49 per month for each phone in your home or business or pay $17.88 for each call to the 911. ($1.49 X 12 = $17.88)

At first I was OK with the $1.49 /mo charge because it would supposedly free up money to add more safety personnel to the cities roster. But the more I thought about it the problem is not so much in the $1.49/mo charge as it was in the way it was presented to the public. The Gang in the Ivory Tower made it sound like we would either pay the charge or forget any assistance from the police or fire department in an emergency.

The way it's spelled out at the present time is as confusing as a Rubets cube. If you sign up for the $1.49/mo charge your first call would be a freebie. Of course they don't say if that's your first call each month, each year, or simply your first call in your entire life span. If you make a 911 call because you are witnessing a crime or reporting a emergency on behalf of someone else it will also be a freebie. About 11,000 to 12,000 phones belong to low-income residents and their calls will be freebies also. Also some calls are routed through the highway patrol then to Ventura police and can't be traced to the caller so no charge will be made on those calls.

They say they receive about 5,500 emergency calls a month at the present time, I can foresee that if people are required to pay the extra $1.49/mo they will feel they can call anytime they want and the emergency calls will possibly balloon to double that number.

So all in all it seems to me that this wonderfully thought out plan of the Gang in the Ivory Tower is going to be another &quot;dead duck&quot; like the Red Light Intersection cameras that were going to bring untold wealth to our city and wound up costing us a couple million dollars a year.